Had an annoying couple days ago. First, the Dish DVR had a tantrum. This has been happening for a while. The following could be signs your DVR harddrive is aging.
It freezes up while in just about any mode. If I'm watching a recording, I can usually fix it by forcing a reboot (unplug it), waiting for it to go through its boot cycle which can take up to 10 minutes (grrr), and then fast forwarding past the hang up in the recording. It occasionally freezes while watching live tv.
It pixelates. The picture looks scrambled for a few moments...little squares like a jigsaw puzzle. This usually happened in recordings, but sometimes while switching channels. I noticed it happened at certain times in recordings. When 2 events begin recording at the same time, or a 2nd one begins while another is in progress, or while I'm watching a recording when another begins. The pixelations appeared at those points. I don't know, this might be somewhat normal when asking the DVR to multi-task, but it seems to happen more often lately.
It began to be noisy. It would roar like an overworked computer. Not all the time, just here and there. About a week ago it froze and put up an alert that the unit was overheating. Whoa. Never saw that before. I went to the box and it was very hot. My bad, the vents were clogged with dust. Word to the wise, vacuum the vents regularly. I did that and unplugged it until it cooled off. Since then, the fan is roaring more often. The unit isn't overheating, in fact, it's stayed pretty cool, but the fan is still coming on loudly.
Since I've been wanting the new Hopper (records 6 things at once!), I decided maybe I better do it before the thing fails completely. And this day, it did. It froze in the program guide. The grid blinked out, leaving the little picture in the corner, and then that went away and the screen was black. Zip nada. That was new. It has froze in the guide before, but not like that. I spent the next hour or more rebooting with no results and finally called tech support, and ordering the Hopper was to be my other reason for calling. It's only a few bucks more and I'm sure I will like it. The technician was very nice and spent a good hour with me on the phone while we tried to get my box working again. Finally did. It wasn't anything new we did, I had already done all that. It just...I don't know...got over its tantrum this time.
So the Hopper is coming Thursday, and I have a dilemma. I have a lot of things saved on the DVR. 2 series that I haven't watched yet. Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries. I save the entire season to watch at once. They're not in HD so don't take up much room on the drive, and I just enjoy these shows as a marathon. Quite a bit of The Daily Show I haven't watched yet. BTW...bummer! Jon Stewart is going on hiatus to pursue another project and turning the show over to someone else for 3 months or more. Don't know if it will be as good for me without him. He is The Daily Show, you know. I've saved some series finales, music videos, and random things I haven't watched yet.
I asked the tech if the installer could transfer what's on my DVR to the new unit and apparently not. Really? Why don't these things have that simple feature? How hard could it be? My only option is a high capacity external harddrive (it can do that, but not a simple transfer???), and a quick search online says it will cost over $70. Well shit. I don't want to lose my stuff, and I can't watch it all by Thursday. I'll look at Walmart (cheaper, if they have it) but I think I'll be better off going to Best Buy so I can talk to a Geek and make sure I get the right one, and he should be able to explain the process.
So there was that. Then my internet went wonky the next day. This happens sometimes but hasn't happened in a long time. I blame the crappy software for the wireless modem. It's always acting up, and apparently the Powers That Be don't think it's worth fixing. I guess because of the internet phones and tablets that more people use these days. That's where the wireless companies put their efforts, to hell with the rest of us. I wasn't able to get online at all, and even after going through all the protocols (open/close app, unplug/replug modem and sim card, uninstall/reinstall software) several times, it wouldn't connect. I had to walk away from the computer after fucking with it for way too long, and then it got over its tantrum. The next time I tried, it worked. Hmmpf.
There was an update since I bought the modem with its original software CD, but now it won't let me download the update. Fuckin fine. As long as it will connect, I'll live with the old software. I am going to drop in the local Verizon store and see if anyone there has any insight on how to make it better. Tech support by phone has been no help. They just run me through the protocols I already know. Maybe my modem is aging, or maybe a different brand is better. Oh yeah, and it's supposed to be 4G. Haven't been able to connect to that in a long long time. I'm chugging along with 3G. There's a 4G signal available, the stupid software refuses to connect to it.
Then there was my personal glitch. One of the last things I saw on the internet Friday was the reminders about Daylight Savings Time. So I changed all the clocks before I went to bed. I didn't do the atomic clock on the weather station. It should update itself. I checked it the next morning to make sure it did, and it hadn't. Oh duh...it's Saturday, dipstick. That happens on Sunday, you know. Wasn't changing them back, so I had to remember what time it really was when I looked at a clock. That reinforced how dumb DST is. It doesn't change the length of daylight, just how you relate to it. Supposed to save energy, but I don't see how that works. The way I see it, it's the same hour of use at a different time of day. Anyways, I guess that was a senior moment for me. Hey, when you're retired without a real daily schedule, everyday is Saturday.
Enjoy the hour. Good morning.
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